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Forecast: High surf easing on Monday

Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

Last Modified: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.

Local beaches and beachgoers may get a break starting Monday. The heavy high tides and rough surf that have further eroded some local beaches and forced Volusia officials to close beaches to driving during high tides for much of the past two weeks are subsiding, the National Weather Service said Saturday.

A slow-moving low-pressure system has finally "kicked out and moved off into the North Atlantic," said Randy Lascody, a marine-weather expert with the National Weather Service in Melbourne.

Volusia beaches were open for "most of the day" on Saturday, said Volusia County Beach Patrol spokeswoman Tammy Marris. The beach wasn't closed to driving until a couple of hours before high tide, she said, and after days of higher surf, the waves had dropped to about 2 to 3 feet.

The closings seem to happen every year in November, Marris said. Last year, Volusia beaches were closed almost daily for three weeks.

Lascody has been reviewing historic weather records and noticed a lot of cases of erosion in October and November.

"Not every year, but a lot of years we get these windy periods with high waves," Lascody said Saturday.

The October events are usually hurricanes, he said, but the November high-wave events aren't so easily explained.

"This is a transition season from warm to cold," Lascody said. More low-pressure centers seem to form offshore and linger, and, when they're combined with strong high pressure from the north, "you get a wind situation that drives these wave events."

Even though the Weather Service has been posting rip-current advisories almost daily in Volusia and Flagler counties, Marris said the Beach Patrol hasn't had to make a lot of beach rescues.

"The water is too cold. It's down to like 65 or 66," she said. "We just have typical, local surfers in there."

On the upside, Marris said, "we've had a lot of nice sea shells washing up."

The high tides have compounded erosion that began as Hurricane Sandy moved up the Atlantic Coast past Florida.

Sandy flattened and leveled local beaches, said Joe Nolin, director of Volusia County's coastal division. In the weeks since, persistent northerly winds and heavy driving seas have pushed the high tides higher along the East Central Florida coast, said Nolin and others.

Anytime you lose even 1 to 2 feet of sand off the beach it makes a difference, Lascody said. "Even the change from high tide to low tide can be intense because more of the ocean can come up onto the beach."

Though "moderate" erosion occurred at some locations in Volusia, beaches to the south along the Treasure Coast in Brevard and south have experienced heavier erosion, Lascody said. It was "really bad" in Brevard, he said, with 6 to 8 feet of sand lost along some Brevard beaches.

Flagler County spokesman Carl Laundrie said Friday he'd heard of no major issues along Flagler beaches.

Last week, during high tide, ocean water would push under the wooden boardwalk at the North Jetty at Ponce de Leon Inlet and flow out toward the inlet. Nolin said the county inspects the boardwalk often for structural impacts.

Meanwhile, most of the dune walkovers that were damaged during Sandy have been repaired. Nolin said the only walkover left to be repaired is the central walkover at Bethune Beach Park.

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